


Conduit

by xDomino009x



Series: Dear Diary [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/F, Fluff, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1475164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xDomino009x/pseuds/xDomino009x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The diary of Commander Shepard - the short snippets of her life she choses to share with no one but her journal and that no one is permitted to read. (Except maybe her girlfriend...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conduit

I’m on the Normandy, apparently the most high tech ship in the alliance fleet, with only Anderson that I’ve met before. It’s a strange feeling, being surrounded by so many strangers after the tour on my last ship. I knew everyone on that one and every inch of the actual ship herself. She was a beauty, but nothing like the Normandy. Anderson wants me to go ground-side with some Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and Corporal Richard L. Jenkins. It sounds easy really, just go down grab a beacon and get back up. But when is it ever that easy.

It’s a Prothean beacon so I’ll probably find Hanar protesters surrounding it. It would be just like those stupid, stubborn jellyfish to get in my way. But we’re almost there now, so I guess I’d better get going and sort this out, Hanar or no. The Turian spectre, Nihlus should be ready to go, as well as the other two, so I guess there’s no more time to waste.

** ** **

The mission was... well a disaster seems to be selling it short. We lost Jenkins and Nihlus and now Anderson wants us to go to the council because some Turian bastard attacked the colony with a load of Geth troopers. It’s all fucking madness and I don’t know if the vision is the worst of it or not. I mean, is it normal to go near a Prothean beacon and it attack you and burn some terrifying vision into your brain? Apparently I was carried back to the ship unconscious by Kaidan and some soldier chick we met down there, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams.

As far as I remember they were both good people but now I guess I owe them my life so I have to play nice. Kaidan seems to be in a bitter mood though since I snapped at him - as if I didn’t have good reason to after all the shit I want through down there I didn’t even know about. I think I deserve a little slack. Ashley seemed just fine, although apparently I had a go at her ground-side just after we lost Jenkins, but I guess that’s explained in itself. She got it, and she... she tried to make me feel better, which was new. People normally keep their distance from the Butcher of Torfan.

Anyway, Anderson’s calling me. Maybe we’re at the citadel now to go meet the council. If they laugh at me, I swear...

** ** **

So, the meeting went as shit as I suspected. Now all I have to do is find even more evidence against this Turian bastard, Saren. The captain thinks the best place to start would either be with some C-Sec slacker called Harkin or with Barla Von, one of the Shadow Broker’s agents. I think I’m gonna go see the Volus first – don’t like the sounds of Harkin really and I can’t be bothered wasting my time on someone if they’re gonna get wasted in some place as dingy as Chora’s Den.

But that’s in the morning. Right now I need some rest, and to try and get my head to stop replaying that damned vision the council were all too eager to discredit. No one said anything about using it as evidence but of course as soon as their top Spectre agent opened his mouth it was fair game to jump down the poor little human’s throat. But hey, they’re only aliens. Not like I can expect much more right?

Kaidan thinks we should just rely on the politicians to battle it out and hope we win but Ashley’s all up for knocking some teeth out if it gets us this evidence faster. As for me, I’d rather not knock teeth out, but I’m not sure I trust Udina enough to let him be in charge of everything. If I don’t do something and this fails, I know I’ll end up blaming myself. Just one of my human charms.

So tomorrow we’re gonna set out to find this evidence if it kills Kaidan to do it. And hopefully we can avoid Chora’s Den. If Barla Von has any good information for me though it’s gonna cost me, and I don’t know how well funded the Alliance will let me be. If they don’t give me enough I can’t guarantee being able to get the info I need.

** ** **

After a whole day trekking through the wards I finally managed to find the evidence I needed. All I had to do was find a Turian C-Sec agent, a Krogan bounty hunter and a Quarian on her pilgrimage. I know – it sounds like the start to a bad joke, but wait ‘til you hear the punch-line. We’ve got Saren nailed. After the voice recording the little Quarian girl, Tali’Zorah Nah Rayya, managed to get hold of from a Geth’s memory core we have everything we need to pin him and some other random woman to the metaphorical wall.

The C-Sec agent, Garrus Vakarian, seems kinda cute in a scaly, scowly, scary kinda way. Okay, so maybe not all Turians are bad, Nihlus and Garrus at least seem okay. The Turian councillor... not so much. ‘Dick head’ is more appropriate. As for the bounty hunter... well I think I’ll withhold judgement on Wrex for now. He seemed like a nice enough guy until he shot Fist in cold blood. I mean I get that he had a contract on the man and he was a scumbag, but he was unarmed.

But tonight was full of small celebration and sleeping, since tomorrow we get another audience with the council. And if they don’t take this evidence that Asari might just end up with a round right through her supposedly pretty face.

** ** **

Finally! I think this is our first stroke of luck since Eden Prime. The council actually listened to what we had to say and they agreed to send a strike team after Saren – that strike team being me and my team. They also made me a spectre, which I guess is pretty big news. But I don’t feel like I deserve it. if it’ll help me gat Saren then fine, I’ll take it, but after we deal with him I wonder if they’ll let me resign and just go back to being a marine. It’s a huge honour and all, but I don’t want any more attention. Not after Torfan.

On the plus side the aliens decided to stay with me, so now we’re off to the Artemis Tau cluster to look for some Asari called Liara T’soni. She’s the matriarch’s daughter, matriarch Benezia – the other woman on the recording talking to Saren. On the down side the council didn’t believe us about the reapers. I think that was what my vision was: the Protheans getting wiped out by the Reapers 50,000 years ago. If so, that’s one hell of a journal. Maybe the Asari we’re off to find will shed some light on it – she’s meant to be some big Prothean expert or something like that. But I’m not gonna hold my breath.

** ** **

So, turns out this little Asari is a Prothean expert. She did something to my mind – I think she called it melding – to find out what the beacon is. It wasn’t unpleasant in the slightest for me, feeling her within my mind, but for her... well. She’s in with Dr Chakwas next door to my room and I can hear her explaining how she feels to her and her voice... it so soft. But she’s seems too young to be an expert on anything, a least by Asari standards. It seems strange to think of someone who looks so youthful to be 106 and then be little more than a child to her own people. A 1,000 year life span is nothing to frown at.

But her little tantrum in the debriefing room was more than a little amusing. Apparently she’d been trying to find out about some cycle that killed off all the Protheans 50,000 years ago and another civilisation before that and another before that and so on and then all the answers just fell into my lap. She even said ‘It’s not fair!’ like some moody child. Wrex looked like he kinda wanted to offer her a cookie or something. I just wanted to scoop her up in a big hug and tell her everything was gonna be alright. I still do, but maybe that’s just the meld talking. Maybe they make you their willing slaves for a while. That would explain all these stray thoughts that keep floating out of the murky depths of my mind I guess.

Anyway, away from my filthy mind, tomorrow we’re heading off to Noveria to try and find any sign of Saren and maybe... I don’t know... rip the plating up from his goddamned flesh and watch him bleed out on the snow, just for fun, and then put a round through both his eyes and rip out each of his teeth and all the other things I've heard are really bad to do to a Turian. He’d deserve it after what he did on the colony. We don’t really have any plans after that, I’m probably going to spend most of the way there talking to people, finding out if they’re all doing good.

I was seriously debating getting Tali a headset on our last trip to the Citadel since the ship’s too quiet for her to sleep, but it wouldn’t be the same. I guess it makes sense that she can’t sleep considering what the silence means on her Flotilla. And then there's Garrus who's gonna kill me next time I take the Mako out after the dents I left in it driving around Therum. According to him the only thing I could’ve done worse to it was drive it into the lava – which I almost did when Tali jumped nervously in the back because there were a few turrets taking shots at us. And I think Wrex wants to be my best friend since I found his grandfather’s old armour. It’s a load of crap but it means something to him even though he says his family means nothing to him.

As for Kaidan I’ve been leaving him on the ship a lot since his damned migraines aren’t helping with the missions and I keep thinking he’s gonna collapse behind me when I really need him to have my back or something. And Ashley gets left behind when I take Garrus ground-side with me. I can never tell if she’s aiming at the bad guy just behind him or the back of his head. And then they just stand in the cargo bay all day long glaring at each other while he fixes the Mako and she cleans out her guns. They should either scrap it out or kiss or something, just get over it. Mainly Ashley though – Garrus doesn’t seem all that bothered by her open dislike of Turians.

** ** **

Well, Noveria isn’t all I expected it to be. I sorted out a load of random shit for other people while I was there and found out that Saren wasn’t here but Benezia is. Liara’s asked to come with me when I go and find her. I wan to say no just in case the worst might happen – I don’t want to have to kill her mother in front of her – and how do I know that she won’t just turn on me when we get them together. What if Benezia can convince her that Saren’s right? But I have to trust her, so I said she can come so long as she does whatever I tell her to. She’d never been on a mission like this before, and thins probably isn’t the best one for her first. But just like Benezia might convince her she might convince Benezia that Saren is wrong.

I had to do a lot to get the card for leaving the docks. I talked to some pompous little bastard of a Salerian, raided a closed off office for a Turian so he could get his data that showed the Salerian bastard was dirty and had been laundering money from the people of Noveria. Then I had to convince him to go public with his information so I could get the pass of some woman from Noveria Internal Affairs, Giana Parasini. The only highlight of that was watching the Salerian get arrested and being offered a drink the next time I saw Giana. Now I’ve got the offer one of us will die before we meet again, that’s always how it happens.

I smuggled some package in for a Hanar while I waited, since there was no point trying to drive the Mako up the side of a mountain when it was getting dark with Garrus sat next to me yelling to avoid the rocks and the sudden drops and falling off the cliffs just for the fun of it. I even convinced Liara to take a little wager with me on how long it takes for him to offer to drive when we actually get going tomorrow. And I spied on some Binary Helix guy for an Asari from Thessia just because he might have prototype Asari biotic amp models or blueprints on him. It wasn’t half as fun as they make it out to be in the vids to be honest.

** ** **

Noveria was worse than Eden Prime by all accounts. It turned out that Saren had indoctrinated Benezia. In the end I had no choice but to kill her, and Liara refused to leave. Before she died she said goodbye to Liara, asked me to look after her. My mother never got the chance to say goodbye or make any last wishes. Of course I promised I’d look after Liara, I’d been planning to anyway, but now I have incentive. As long as I breathe she won’t get hurt.

The only good thing to come out of the day was the new knowledge of where the Mu relay is, and I’ll need that if I’m going to get to the conduit before Saren. Liara melded with me again after we found out the new information, just to see if knowing that would make it any easier to understand. All the time we were connected I could feel how much pain she was in, and I imagine she’s still in now, after losing her mother. I just –

 – Liara just came in, crying. I wasn’t sure what to do. I tried to comfort her but it’s never been my forte. I don’t know if I should feel like I do, especially now. She’d laying in my bed asleep finally after I sat with her for hours talking to her about anything that would take her mind off her mother for a few moments while she sobbed into my shoulder. But now I’m sat on a chair next to the bed and if I reached out I could stroke my hand down her crest, run it along her side, if I knelt down next to her I could kiss her lips and wrap an arm around her waist.

But I should stop now. I can’t think about her like this. I keep trying to think about other people, Garrus, Kaidan, Ashley... Wrex even, but nothing helps. My mind just keeps drifting to the Asari on my bed that I could snuggle up next to if I really wanted to. I can’t stop looking at her as I’m writing, thinking about how beautifully at peace she looks even after everything she’d just seen. I can’t stop thinking about how soft her lips were when they brushed across mine by accident as she turned her head to face me.

** ** **

We stopped off at the Citadel for supplies today, just supplies, and somehow I ended up at Chora’s Den with Liara and Ashley while we tried to take the little Asari’s mind off everything. She keeps saying it doesn’t bother her, that she can remember Benezia as she was before the indoctrination, but it bothers her. I can see that, I can hear it when we talk. She’s distracted in everything. The other day I watched her hold a book upside down for a few minutes before she realised what was wrong with it. It hurts like I didn’t know it could seeing her like this.

Liara didn’t drink anything for a while but we managed to get her to try something that it turned out she liked. And then when Ashley had gone to the bar she’d kissed me. On the cheek at first and then on the lips. And god her lips... they were so soft, softer than I’d ever thought they could be, softer than I remembered from the small brush against mine days ago. Her fingers knotted in my hair and she let me run a hand down her crest, and down her side. I wrapped one arm around her waist and brought her against me but Ashley came over too soon and had absolutely no tact dealing with the matter.

Liara hasn’t spoken to me since, I don’t know about anyone else. Ashley’s been throwing apologies at me every time she’s seen me as well and it’s honestly starting to get on my nerves. I’m sure it’s not her fault she has no social skills in a situation like that to speak of... she’s more like Garrus than I originally thought.

** ** **

I tried to talk to Liara down on Feros but that didn’t end too well, mainly since we got attacked by some husk like things the team’s elected to call ‘Thorian Creepers’. The universe has a fun way of interrupting me lately, regardless what I’m doing. The other day I was trying to talk to Ashley and Garrus – get them to be friends and all that – when the Mako decided to half explode just because a Thresher Maw came up underneath it. At least we got to kill something big I guess, but Wrex was kinda upset that he wasn’t there. Maybe Thresher Maw killing is like an Olympic sport back on Tuchanka.

But Feros went a lot better than Noveria did, like things could get much worse than Noveria. We managed to save almost all the colonists under the Thorian’s control except for that one who decided to throw a grenade at us and, well, he didn’t have a good arm. And we reunited a girl with her mother, and destroyed the Thorian – some big carnivorous plant thing I think – but that wasn’t even the strangest part.

There was an Asari, Shiala, who was working for Saren like Benezia. Actually I think she was the matriarch’s top lieutenant or something. But anyway, Saren had given her to the Thorian in offering so he could find out where the conduit was. And it came in the form of another vision – lucky me. She melded with me and I don’t know if it’s just how I’ve come to feel about her or not but Liara’s mind felt better than the new Asari’s when it connected with mine. The new vision was just as intense as the first, but according to Liara it filled in some gaps with the first one that I got from the beacon.

She... melded with me again. It was the first time we’d spoken since the whole kiss thing in Chora’s Den and it was nice to know that maybe I haven’t ruined everything. Her friendship is important to me, just like everyone else on the ship. But aside from that we know where we need to go now. Liara says the vision is trying to show me that the conduit is on Ilos, some planet through the lost Mu Relay ages ago, in the Rachni wars or even before then, I don’t know.

So now we have our heading as soon as the council decides to get off their asses and help out. They want me to check out an incident with one of the Salerian STG recon teams on Virmire. And that’s where we’re gonna be heading next. I don’t think much more can go wrong on these next few missions, after Noveria how can it get worse at least.

** ** **

Kaidan’s gone. He’s just gone. There’s nothing of him left and it’s all my fault. All the councils fault too. If they hadn’t sent me out there Kaidan might still be alive. If I ever get the chance to make them pay for his death a thousand times over they will. If neither he nor Ashley had gone with that damned Salerian they would both still be here. Now I’m one crew member down and Ashley blames herself for it... his death. He stayed behind on Virmire to make sure that bomb went off. If he hadn’t sacrificed himself none of us would’ve made it off the planet. We each owe him our lives. And there isn’t even a grave. All I can do is force the council and the alliance to honour him and hold a memorial once this is over. Once I make that Turian bastard pay.

Saren was down on Virmire. It was his cloning facility, where he was trying to make an army of fully grown Krogan slaves. For a while I'd thought Wrex was going to fight me on my decision to destroy the base and the cure to the Genophage. But he saw reason after we ‘talked’. Those Krogan soldiers were nothing but slaves to Saren’s twisted will. And they died - just like he will the next time we meet.

After Virmire the council have decided they can do something better than fuck all and they’re giving me a fleet to go after Saren with. And they’re listening to my warnings of the Reapers from what Udina said over the communication. So Joker’s taking us back to the Citadel now and –

 – Liara just came to check on me. She keeps walking in on me writing in my journal – I think she’s doing it on purpose. But she actually came to talk to me. And after all the awkwardness. It was nice, but I don’t think I seemed as grateful as I was. I shouted and cursed and I think I scared her. But she seemed to understand. I was angry. I still am angry. After all this I’ll make sure I find out where we stand and maybe something will come of this ridiculous infatuation I’ve developed. Kaidan told me to go for it and... I owe him.

** ** **

The fucking council and all their fucking rules and politics and then there’s Udina. He’s the worst fucking bastard of them all. If I didn’t know any better I might think he was working for Saren; he’s always getting in my way, always turning the council against me. Now he’s got the Normandy grounded and Joker's throwing a hissy fit in the cockpit which I can’t be bothered to listen to. And Liara wants to talk as if I’ll be any better than last time we spoke. I feel like all I can do is shout and scream and possibly hit a few people. Starting with Udina. I don’t want to hurt her... but I suppose I should go see what she wants. It might be important. And if it’s a way we can get out of this mess I think I might kiss her – again – and then possibly go off to kill Udina and the council one by one before we go through the Mu relay and get to Ilos.

I think somehow me and Liara have made up. Like I thought I would I ended up shouting and screaming but I only hit the lockers – which I’ll have to get Garrus to bash the dent out of later. We almost kissed again but Joker interrupted. I’m seriously starting to think the universe doesn’t want me to kiss her. But, hell, the universe has wanted me dead a few times from what I can tell and I’m still standing so I’ll be damned if that’s gonna keep me from being with her now.

** ** **

Anderson reckons he has a way to get us out of dry dock and on to the Mu relay. He’s gonna break into Udina’s office and override his orders to keep the Normandy grounded. He knows its treason and he’s gonna be charged for it if I’m not right or I don’t succeed. It’s a risk we have to take through. He believes Saren is as much of a threat as the Reapers. And he’s going to do whatever it takes to take them all down. Just like me, just like my crew.

So now I’m sat in my room, wondering whether I should go and see Liara. We might be dead soon, or we might succeed, I don’t know. All I know is I want to feel her against me again, taste her lips on mine, run a finger down her crest. But I want more than just a kiss. I want whatever she’s willing to give, everything she’s willing to give. I want –

 – It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Just like I imagined in my daydreams when I couldn’t stop looking at her across the table. She slept soundly for once, not like those times I'd watched over her as she suffered through nightmares I was too scared to wake her from. If I look behind me back to my bed right now I can see her in the shadows, sleeping and in the middle of what I suppose is a perfect dream, with my covers hanging around her waist. I folded her clothes when I got up. A can’t bring myself to sleep next to her – I don’t want to miss a minute of this night that might be my last or wake her if I suffer one of my own nightmares.

I can still feel her touch even though it’s just a ghost, hands running down my body as my lips trailed down hers. Everything that’s so distinctly Liara – all her tastes, her smells, all those beautiful noises she made, her scaled skin under my fingers. Daydreams are one thing, the reality is something else. I don’t know if it being possibly our last day alive made it more or less special to be honest. But we’re almost there. And I should wake her even though she looks so peaceful right now.

Whatever happens though... I think I love her.

** ** **

It’s over for now. The trip to Ilos and the supposed final battle on the Citadel had finished everything for now. But the reapers will come sooner or later just delayed the inevitable. But now the council have allowed a human to join them and I told them I hated Udina so as far as I can see Anderson’s the only logical choice.

As for me, I’m going to go and find these reapers and make them pay for everything I’ve lost in this fight, and keep the best thing I’ve gained close by me always. That ‘thing’ being Liara... who’s currently reading over my shoulder. But aside from that I’m going to head out into the Terminus Systems and maybe see if anyone around Omega knows anything about the Reapers. If they don’t I’ll try Illium and then maybe I can turn to the Shadow Broker for informa-

 

 -I am sorry, Commander Shepard is unavailable at the minute since her Asari girlfriend – is that the human word? – is stealing her away for a moment. -Liara <3

**Author's Note:**

> So, was it a good read? Maybe steer clear of the Commander for a while just in case she knows you read her secret diary! ;)  
> Comments and feedback are welcome.
> 
> Bioware own everything Mass Effect!!


End file.
